Review by Booklist Review
Elliott's (Baabwaa & Wooliam, 2017) newest picture book offers an upbeat look at avian colors and the joy of being alive. A young child observes the birds near their house: "Red big. / Red small. / Red sits on my garden wall." In subsequent spreads, additional birds of various hues appear until the tree is alive with a glorious array of feathered friends all warbling together. Turk's pastel-and-charcoal illustrations depict each songbird in vibrant colors. Most figures are outlined in black, then filled in with colorful smudges often extending beyond the outlines. Many spreads depict movement (a particular bird at multiple points, swooping across the pages), and birdsong is portrayed as colorful lines flowing from each feathered creature's mouth. The cumulative effect of the full chorus is somewhat discordant visually, but it is effective in conveying the cacophony of such a large flock. Still, there's no denying the jubilant mood this chorus evokes in the child, enabling them to metaphorically "take flight" at the end. A good spring story hour choice.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
As telegraphic verse lines by Elliott (Baabwaa and Wooliam) express a range of natural colors occurring on wild birds, Turk (The People's Painter) illustrates with vivid, kinetic avian forms. In charcoal outlines, a large-eyed, curly-haired child whose skin is the color of drawing paper sits indoors, spying a bright cardinal out the window: "Red big./ Red small./ Red sits on my/ garden wall." After the child ventures outside for a closer look, blue jays arrive: "Blue low./ Blue high./ Blue has taken to the sky." Subsequent images foreground action, motion, and the flurry of wings; birds soar in and out of frame in deeply saturated swaths of pastel, impressing their respective hues on the child and the landscape. When the birds perch in a tree and start to sing, cyclones of color rise into the sky, and the child joins in: " I sing with them,/ clear and light." Via rhyming lines and many-hued lines and textures, the creators show how attention to the natural world can offer endless change and variation. Ages 4--8. Author's agent: Kelly Sonnack, Andrea Brown Literary. Illustrator's agent: Brenda Bowen, Book Group. (Feb.)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Toddler-PreS--Reminiscent of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, this book teaches young readers about colors while pairing the lesson with joy and whimsy: "Blue low, blue high. Blue has taken to the sky." Readers follow a young child with enormous eyes and short curls as they discover a world with a rainbow of colorful birds. Concise sentences on each spread are provided in large type for those first learning to read and offer an easily accessible rhyme scheme. This poetic quality of the text engages readers in the beauty of nature and song. The sketch-style artwork in pastels and charcoal shows a world awash in color. The illustrations are detailed, particularly for the birds and trees, but the diffused light also provides a gentle quality to the scenes. VERDICT A recommended purchase for home and public library collections serving the youngest of patrons, and for fans of Eric Carle. Older readers may find instructional use; for example, the book can be used to teach colors to English language learners.--Monisha Blair
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Sitting by the window, a young child sees a red bird flying past and is drawn outside. Once in the garden, the child, who could be a girl or a boy, peeks out from behind a tree, gazes up at the bird, and narrates: "Red big. / Red small. / Red sits on my garden wall." Red big refers to the huge tree with a vast canopy of red leaves, while Red small refers to the bird perched nearby. The child spies eight more birds, one by one, each a different color. While the birds' species aren't specified, they appear to be a red cardinal, a blue jay, a yellow canary, a red-winged blackbird, a white dove, a green hummingbird, an orange oriole, a purple honeycreeper, and a brown woodcreeper (or possibly a house wren). The singsong rhyming text introduces various early learning concepts such as directionality ("Brown left. / Brown right. / Brown in shadow. / Brown in light") and height ("Blue low. / Blue high. / Blue has taken to the sky"), and the placement of words on the page cleverly underscores the concept. The backgrounds of each spread and the child's face, skin, and clothing, which are transparent at first, cumulatively take on the hues of the birds until the pages frenetically burst with color. The pastel-and-charcoal illustrations become increasingly energetic, whimsical and full of scribbles, as the child progressively adopts the behavior of the birds, blissfully singing and losing themselves in euphoric flight. Unfortunately, the climactic ending scenes are crowded with so many abstract lines and have such a chaotic composition that they lack the sense of open space needed for flight. Most of the verse scans well, though a missing syllable at the end makes the closing line sag. A visually interesting concept book, full of wonder and lightsomeness, that's useful for teaching young ones about colors. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
